Earth and other unlikely worlds

Sunday, March 14, 2010

Old School Future

Picked this up for a fiver in a secondhand bookshop in Camden: a science-fiction anthology published by The Bodley Head Science Fiction Club in 1953, containing the first six stories of the longer American edition. What's interesting about the cover, apart from the lovely retro space hardware, is the depiction of a woman at the helm of a spaceship (or perhaps controlling lunar orbital traffic from a space station). I imagine she's toggling the radio to remind the space cowboy who's just buzzed her that he's violated about twenty navigational regs.

EDIT: Further thought - maybe the presence of a female space pilot/traffic controller in this old science-fiction illustration isn't so unusual; during the Second World War, just eight years in the past, when the book was published, women had taken on all kinds of roles previously considered the exclusive domain of men.

About Me

I'm a full-time author of more than twenty books, including novels, short story collections and a film monograph. ﻿I've also published reviews and pieces of journalism in magazines and newspapers.I live in North London.
My latest novel is Something Coming Through, which will be published in the UK and US on February 19th.
Some of my fiction and nonfiction is archived on my web site.
If you would like to contact me, details are here.